It has become a
truism that there is a close connection between school failure and juvenile
crime, as demonstrated by literally hundreds of studies over the past 100
years. As if to remind us once again, here comes yet another study, this one by
the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara. As reported in the
Los Angeles Times, dropping out of school costs the state $1.1 billion
each year and if we decreased the number of dropouts by half it would save $550
million per year. This study also found that for each group of 20-year-olds
(about 120,000 per year) the total economic loss is about $46.4 billion.

Looking more
carefully at the actual
reportreveals that compared to high school graduates dropouts “earn
lower wages, pay fewer taxes, are more likely to commit crimes, are less likely
to be employed, are more likely to be on welfare, and are less healthy.” Not
surprisingly, race enters the picture in a predictable way. For example, black
male dropouts have a 60% chance of being incarcerated (the report did not show
the incarceration rate for other races). Another
reportcalled “Ethnic and Gender Differences in California High
School Graduation Rates” shows that black youths have the lowest graduation
rates (59%) with Hispanics only slightly better (60%), and females of all races
the most likely to graduate.

Related reports
(go to same link - report) show that graduation
rates in this state have declined since the required testing (called the
California High School Exit Exam - CAHSEE) took effect during the 2005-2006
school year. These “exit exams” have been a growing phenomenon all over the
country in recent years (“High
school exit exams on the rise”).

A closer look
at some of the other studies conducted by the UC Santa Barbara project reveal
that dropout rates have increased significantly for those in the 12th
grade, while the rates for those in grades 9-11 have declined. The report
suggests that this coincided with the test requirement’s starting point. A
study by two university
professors from Stanford and UC-Davis found some very negative effects of the
testing requirement. Specifically they found that the CAHSEE requirement “had
no positive effects on students’ academic skills, and a large negative impact on
graduation rates that fell disproportionally on minority students and on female
students.” A study by the
University of Minnesota found the tests had “no measurable impact on 13- to
17-year-old students' reading or math achievement levels.” Another study from
this university found that students “who had earned diplomas in states that
required exit exams experienced the same chances of employment and the same wage
rates as those who were not required to pass exit exams.” A 2008
review of the research concludes that “Exit
exam policies now influence the education of 65% of U.S. public high school
students, yet colleges report increasing need for remedial education. Federal
statistics indicate that 40% of college students take at least one remedial
course, reducing their probability of graduating.”
Given the high costs of using such exams, critics wonder if the money could be
better spent elsewhere in the educational system.

Many states
have begun to question the need for such exams. In Maryland, for instance, some
critics are saying that it is “hard to tell whether the exams are improving
instruction or just making adults and students better at gaming the tests to get
better scores,” according to a story in the
Washington Post. A 2004
study found that “exit exams administered by 24 states have had no net
effect on graduation rates.” At least two states have decided to abandon exit
exams altogether,
Alabama and
Texas.

Still another report from the UC Santa Barbara Dropout
Research Project found that dropout rates were
highly concentrated rather than spread around the state. Specifically, the
“10 districts with the highest number of dropouts accounted for 36% of all the
dropouts in California.” More specifically, the highest dropout rates occur in
what are known as “non-traditional schools,” such as “charter schools,
continuation schools, community schools, California Youth Authority schools and
a variety of other alternative schools.” The more traditional schools had a
dropout rate of only 1% compared to a rate of 12% in non-traditional schools
(Statistical Brief 8, “Which California School Districts Have the Most Dropouts”
- report).

One of the reports (Statistical Brief 3, “Early Predictors of High School
Graduation and Dropout”) quoted a national longitudinal study of 8th
graders and found that the most important predictors of dropping out were having
the following risk factors: (1) being from a single-parent home; (2) having at
least one parent who did not graduate; (3) having an older sibling who dropped
out; (4) spending 3 or more hours alone after school; (5) having limited
English-speaking skills; (6) coming from a low income family. (The study was “Coming
of Age in the 1990s: The Eighth-Grade Class of 1988 12 Years Later.”)

Are “exit exams” another way to weed out the poor and minority students? Do
such exams help process such students toward the prison system, becoming part of
what the Children’s Defense Fund has called the
prison pipeline? Their study, published earlier this year, argues that
millions of children face, from the day they are born, multiple high risk
factors that lead, like a “pipeline,” directly to prison. Starting at a very
early age millions are both with low birth weight to teen mothers (who are
unmarried, never completed high school and are living in poverty) without health
insurance, which is followed by being the victims of abuse and neglect. These
factors begin to multiply until they start to fall behind in school, which in
turn leads to hanging out with peers who have also fallen behind, which in turn
leads to expulsions and suspensions, ending in just giving up and not going to
school at all. These risk factors accumulate and the pipeline leads them
inevitably into the arms of the law at a very young age, with short periods of
time in detention, then perhaps foster care, followed by more times in
detention, leading to months or even years in juvenile prisons and finally,
inside the adult prison system.

Despite such evidence, policymakers continue pursuing the same old policies of
“getting tough.” Indeed, during
the last two decades of the 20th century, a turning point in the
history of juvenile justice emerged. Politicians, policy-makers and the general
public began demanding that juveniles take responsibility for their actions and
began to call for punishments typically reserved for adults. The movement is
toward allowing more and more juvenile offenders to be prosecuted in the adult
criminal court. Such a movement may eventually take us back to the kind of
punishments that occurred before the end of the 19th century, when
the “child saving movement” sought to soften the response to juvenile crime,
ushering in an era of rehabilitation within the newly established juvenile
court. Court waivers (or “certification”) of juveniles to the adult system
reflect, in our views, draconian policies that can only make matters worse.
Moreover, these policies have specifically targeted African-American and other
minority youth, while more lenient policies have been reserved for their white
middle class counterparts. In growing numbers of states, a “zero tolerance”
policy has widened the net to such an extent that even the most minor of
offenses result in an arrest and jailing in already overcrowded detention
centers.

The study began
when the University of Texas Law School Supreme Court Clinic agreed to represent
Christopher Pittman, a 12-year old boy who had killed his grandparents, was
tried as an adult and given a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years without
possibility of parole. The Clinic undertook a comprehensive research project
involving law students and graduate students.

The 134 page
document is worthy of a careful review. It contains the most up-to-date
literature and facts from a variety of sources, along with excellent graphics.
Among the key findings include the following:

In more
than half the states it is legal for children under age 12 to be treated as
adults. In 22 states plus the District of Columbia, children as young as 7
can be prosecuted and tried in adult court.

In many
states a child charged with a crime in adult court may be held in an adult
jail while awaiting trial and may be sent to an adult prison upon
conviction. On a single day in 2008, 7,703 children under age 18 were held
in adult local jails and 3,650 in adult state prisons.

The United
States stands almost alone in the world in the punitiveness toward
children. The researchers found no instances where countries handed down 20
and 30 year sentences for children under 13.

Research
clearly shows that treating children this young in the adult system creates
nothing positive – neither for the children nor for public safety.

While
judges in the adult system often have little discretion in sentencing
children, those in the juvenile court system have many different options.
Juvenile courts are fully capable of handling even the most serious young
offenders.

Taxpayers
save money by treating children within the juvenile justice system (one
researcher found that $3 was saved for every dollar spent on the juvenile
system).

The researchers
give a number of specific policy recommendations that should be given serious
consideration by policy makers. It is time for the United States to cease being
mired in 19th century thinking and move into the 21st
century.

The report
highlights some of the most extreme sentences given to children under 13. In
addition to Christopher Pittman, where was Lionel Tate, a 12-year-old who got a
life without parole sentence for killing a 6-year-old girl while trying out
wrestling moves; Evan Savoie was a 12-year-old who received a 26-year sentence
for killing a mentally disabled playmate; Ian Manuel, a 13-year-old with a
traumatic life history who was sentenced to life without parole for inflicting a
nonfatal gunshot wound during a robbery; 12-year-old Djinn Buckingham tried as
an adult for arson and murder of his 11-year-old cousin; and Latasha Armstead, a
victim of gang rape at age 12, who received a life sentence for being a party to
a murder committed by her much-older boyfriend when she was 13. There are many
more examples given in this study.

Politicians
often run on platforms of “educational reform” and talk about their concern for
“our children.” When it comes to annual budgets however they complain about the
“costs” and about “overpaid” teachers. When times are bad (as they are today)
education is usually the first place they look to save money, especially special
needs programs, dropout prevention programs, recreational programs and the
like. Yet they don’t hesitate to spend money on the criminal justice system to
process those who have failed. They apparently have forgotten the old saying
“an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”